ABSTRACT
India, like China, is an aspiring great power that has long harbored the goal of possessing a technologically advanced self-sufficient arms industry.1 These ambitions go back more than 50 years, when the country attempted to design and build its own fighter aircraft, the HF-24 Marut. Although a technological failure, it did not dampen India’s determination to one day becoming a major armsproducing nation, capable of meeting most, if not all, of its requirements for self-defense – and therefore great-power status – through indigenous means. This quest for autarky and stature, for example, drove the country’s nuclear weapons program. As India’s economic power has expanded, and as its technological prowess in certain areas (such as information technologies) has grown, it has become more determined than ever to create a world-class, globally competitive defense industry.
